Characteristics of diffusion-weighted stimulated echo pulse sequence in human skeletal muscle

The aim of our study was to simulate an effective diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) pulse sequence and to evaluate the best b value in skeletal muscle. The evaluated pulse sequences were spin echo (SE), stimulated echo (STE), and gradient-recalled echo (GRE). The signal intensity changed in some DWI pulse sequences when the b value was changed. Moreover, the static magnetic field of 1.5 T was compared with that of 3.0 T. Next, diffusion tensor imaging of the human skeletal muscle was measured. The experimental subjects were healthy male volunteers (n = 7; age 21.8 ± 1.1 years). We changed the b value in steps of 100 s/mm2 from 0 to 2000 s/mm2, and the diffusion values [fractional anisotropy (FA), λ1, λ2, and λ3] were calculated based on the data. The STE method could maintain signals up to b values of 1300 s/mm2, but the SE and GRE methods suffered from high noise. In the human study, the mean FA (±SD) was 0.41 ± 0.02 in the tibialis anterior muscle (TA) and 0.31 ± 0.02 in the soleus muscle (SOL) at a b value of 1000 s/mm2. The correlation of the FA with the b value coefficient and the P value by Student’s t test were r = 0.981 and P < 0.001 for the TA and r = 0.982, P < 0.001 for the SOL. However, the FA became high with a low b value. In conclusion, STE was very useful for DWI in a short T2-value tissue. Moreover, a minimum b value of 800 s/mm2 was necessary for evaluation of human skeletal muscle.